update du jour

As the lawyers like to say, yesterday Mint and I were married de jure. This was not a super-easy process.

On Wednesday we caught a songtaew to the government office that deals with registrations. This was the wrong place. So we then caught a songtaew to the Amphur office, the equivalent I guess of a council office. This was the right place. It also turned out to be a short walk from our house, so we could’ve just walked if we new where it was already, but we didn’t, so there you go.

When we got there, we were given a number downstairs, and told to go upstairs. So we went upstairs, and there were a billion people there, so we took a seat. And waited. And waited. And waited.

It was the type of system where a computerized voice reads out “Customer 326, please go to customer service agent 5″. There were different sets of numbers for what the person wanted to do, ie. we were 328, but 440 was called before us because they were there for a different purpose … we had to wait for 326 and 327 to finish before we’d be called.

Anyway, after 2 hours I saw that 326 was still being served at counter 2. A counter which had no people behind it, no anyone standing in front of it. My first thought was that the staff member working behind counter 2 had gone home. This is Thailand, after all.

I got Mint to check, and it turned out we were supposed to re-register our number given to us downstairs with a desk upstairs. So two hours wasted, we started the paperwork. At 4:30pm, it was almost finished, except they wanted to see Jack’s birth certificate. We didn’t bring that, and they would close in 2 minutes. Defeated, we walked home.

Thursday was the charm. This time we brought Jack’s birth certificate, and were duly married. We needed to pay a witness to witness it, and Mint was later very cross at herself for giving the woman 1000 baht for it. She later realized the woman, who was ecstatic, would’ve been happy with 500, or even 200 for the two signatures. Still, we were married.

We had our own dodgy reception, at the food court at Kad Suan Kaew. I had this monstrosity for 229 baht that included 2 chicken breasts, a pork steak, roast potato and deep-fried fish. Oh, and 2 slices of thick toast with garlic butter. And coleslaw. It was waay too much food, but it’s my tradition that when I let myself get retarded hungry I always overorder. Oh well, it was a celebration I suppose.

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  By Bronwyn Barber, January 11, 2009 @ 8:15 pm

  Congratulations to Mr and Mrs Winter on you marriage. All our best wishes for a long and happy life together..Love Tim and Bronwyn

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